A Day in the Life
by Emmy-loo
Summary: Oneshot of Sam's perspective on Max and their date. Teenage hormones abound!


DISCLAIMER: I do not own Maximum Ride, and I am not James Patterson. I am only borrowing his characters and dialogue.

_"Go-od morning_, Virginia! Trey here from the morning show on Mix 93.3! Wake up all you sleepy-heads!"

I got up, slammed the "OFF" button on my alarm clock, and threw the covers off of my bed. School again – how many days left now? A hundred and fifty? I groaned and, without any enthusiasm, got ready for my day.

Jessica beeped the horn outside. Ever since she'd gotten her license, she had driven me to school almost every day. She was known to desert me in the house if I was running late, though, so I grabbed my backpack and a granola bar and ran out the door. She was still beeping the horn impatiently when I got outside, so I snapped, "GOD, Jessica, lay off the freaking horn!"

She only giggled, "_Someone's_ a little touchy this morning. Good morning to you too, by the way." I groaned. So she was going to pretend to be the perfect sister this morning? Excellent. Exactly what I needed at 7:10 A.M.

The day passed extremely slowly. My morning was definitely an indication of my afternoon went. I stumbled into Language Arts, my last class of the day, a few seconds after the bell, and muttered an apology to Ms. Segerdahl. She only smiled at me and motioned to my seat. God she's such a push-over. I dumped my stuff on my desk and sat down, crossing my arms on my desk and putting my head down. Then I blinked. There was blonde hair in front of me. Blonde hair with pink streaks. Since when had anyone sat in front of me? Maybe the rest of my day wouldn't suck after all.

I got my answer when Ms. Segerdahl cleared her throat, "Well, class, we have a new student to welcome today," She cleared her throat again, clearly uncomfortable speaking in front of the class. Usually she just assigned work and read romance novels under the desk. Come on, out with it woman! Finally, she continued, "Max, would you like to tell us a little about yourself?"

Max? That's a cool name, especially for a girl. I wonder if it's short for Maxine or something. I would go by Max too if my name were Maxine. The girl in front of my stood up, kind of reluctantly, and said, "Well I'm Max. I have five brothers and sisters and a dog named Total." She looked kind of at a loss for what to say next, because I'm sure everyone looking at her kind of freaked her out. She was pretty, definitely. I'd have to talk to her soon.

Ms. Segerdahl, sensing the awkwardness, cleared her throat again to speak, "Thanks, Max. Now if we all open our books to page 131…" I took the opportunity to examine the girl in front of me – Max – again. Her blonde hair was pretty short, with the pink highlights and some lighter blonde ones in there. I didn't usually go for girls with freaky hair, but there was something about her that made me look again. She was tall, almost as tall as me, which is saying something because I'm almost six foot. She was tan, and had brown eyes and a really pretty face. She looks in shape, which meant that she's probably athletic. Good – I can't stand girls who don't do sports because of their hair, or their nails or something else equally as stupid. Maybe she was a swimmer. She definitely had the shoulders for it.

"Sam?" Ms. Segerdahl asked me, making me take my thoughts away from my examination, "What was the theme of the story we just read?" I almost grimaced. I hated English with a passion, but the answers were easy because as long as you support them, the teacher can't really mark you wrong. "Well Ms. S," I began, knowing she hates that nickname, "I think it was mainly about how extremely emotion can affect reason. The main character clearly shows this, because in his desperation, he resorts to drastic actions." Ms. S looked rather startled. She wasn't used to people answering in so much detail. But my answer guaranteed that she would be off my case for another ten minutes or so, allowing me to look at Max again.

I wondered silently, while the class discussed the implications of extreme emotions on logical reasoning, if Max was stuck up. In my experience, if a pretty girl knows she's pretty, she gets an enormous ego boost. Case in point, Lissa, my most recent ex. Sure, she had hair like fire, and she definitely knew how to kiss, but she was so _obnoxious_. Honestly, I've never met anyone so full of themselves. Max was definitely pretty enough to have an ego.

The bell rang, shaking me out of my reverie, and I made my way to the parking lot. Max was definitely someone to talk to.

* * *

The next day passed pretty much in the same fashion, except I was in a little bit of a better mood, now that I could look forward to talking to Max. I hadn't expected to see her until Language Arts, so I was a little surprised when I saw her in the Library during my Study Hall. But I didn't let my nervousness show. Out of all the 'tips' my three older sisters had given me over the years, one of the most useful ones by far is to never let a girl see that you're nervous. Who likes a guy who stutters?

She looked like she wanted a computer, but she looked a little unsure as to how it works. I decided to be a gentleman and offer her my computer: "Here, I can get off." She looked at me for a second, and said, "What?" God, even her voice is hot. But she sounded confused; maybe they didn't have computers in her old school. So I tried clearing it up for her. "I don't need this computer. You can have it." She looked at me again, as if assessing me. She was even prettier close up. She replied, "Oh, okay. Thanks."

That was pretty lame as far as conversations go, so I tried to keep talking to her. "You're new. You're in my Language Arts class." Ouch. As far as conversation starters go, that was ranked way down there. But, thankfully, she replied, "Yeah, I'm Max."

"I know. I'm Sam." I smiled at her – she really is hot. She didn't look like she was going to continue our conversation, so I sprung her with another question, "Where did you move from?" She almost seemed to hesitate, but she replied "Uhh… Missouri." Oh, the Midwest. "Wow. Midwest. This must be pretty different for you." Somehow my ability to form complete sentences seemed to be…incapacitated by Max.

Her next reply was just as short as all of her other ones – "Yep." I guess she isn't much of a talker. Not that it's a bad thing. Lissa nearly talked my ears off anyway. I still wanted to talk to her – I barely knew anything about her! "So, are you doing schoolwork or more of a personal project?" I asked, leaning my head in the direction of the computer. She almost seemed irritated with all my questions, but the look I thought I caught was gone within a second. Maybe I was just paranoid. She finally answered me, "Um, more of a personal project."

I smiled. No one does homework during school, not even during Study Hall. "Me too. I was checking out this kayak I want to buy. I'm hoping my Christmas money will give me enough." She smiled a small smile, and the room lit up. Honestly, I don't know why she doesn't just go around smiling all the time. She would get anything she wanted. After the smile, she replied with a simple, "Cool."

"Well, I'll let you get to it then," I told her, starting to pack up my stuff. I wanted to talk to her more, but I couldn't think of anything else to say without seeming either really irritating or nosy. So I just got up and left.

* * *

The next two weeks were pretty boring. I tried to talk to Max more, but she seemed very closed-in. But I talked to her enough to get that her parents were missionaries (I didn't even think those existed anymore!), and that she basically raised her brothers and sisters. Being the youngest, I can't even begin to imagine that. I wonder if her younger siblings actually listen to her. I know I wouldn't listen to my older sisters if my life depended on it. They're too obnoxious.

But as those two weeks went on, I found myself even more attracted to Max. I mean, she was hot, she was smart (Some of the questions she answered in Language Arts were insane!), she was nice, she was just all-around my kind of girl. So, I asked her out. I wasn't exactly confident, I mean, I had only ever seen her interact with teachers and kids who asked her direct questions. At least, them and her family. So, when I actually finally asked her, I was pretty excited when she said yes. I was the first guy in the school to get the hot new girl on a date!

She looked even hotter out of her school uniform. She wasn't all dressed up, which I appreciated, because high-maintenance girls irritated me. Her velour hoodie seemed to match her personality, somehow. It was a lot easier to talk to her outside of school – she seemed to be a lot more open. I was pleasantly surprised when she suggested the movie – I had wanted to see it, but I had thought that she might have her heart set on something a little less…gory. But she looked like she was enjoying it, so I let myself enjoy it. I thought about trying to hold her hand, but would that be seen as moving too fast? We only just got there. I looked at her again. The movie was in the middle of a fight scene, and she looked at it like she was…analyzing it. But it was probably just my imagination. I should've been glad I found a girl who appreciated a good action flick!

After the movie, we headed over to an ice cream place I like. I decided to take a risk and grab her hand…and she didn't shake me off! First step, complete. It was easier than usual to talk to her, she seemed to have come out of her shell a little. I described Hell Dinner (A.K.A. Thanksgiving) to her, and everything seemed to be going fine. But then I saw her stop eating her ice cream and look out the window behind me. She tensed up, and started looking around the shop. The only thing I could think? _What the he…ck_ _is going on_?

"Max? Are you okay?" I asked her. She looked kind of freaky. Like mad, but scared. More pissed than anything actually. She replied with a slight "Uh-huh," still looking out the window. I turned around, but I didn't see anything but the street. I turned back to her confused. She was still, almost frozen. "You okay?" I asked her again. She replied with another "Umm-hmm. Just thought I saw something." What would cause her to react like that? She looked distracted, so I decided to push the conversation back to normal. "Max?" She turned back to me again, this time with her eyes apologetic. "Sorry," she replied, "got distracted."

I decided to let it pass, and instead of grilling her about it, I started talking about her ice cream. Sure, not the best of topics, but it was better than an awkward silence. I was reluctant to take her home. This date with Max had gone much better than I expected, even with the scene in the ice cream shop. I was especially reluctant to go home because Jessica was driving, and I knew she would hesitate to question me about _everything_.

* * *

After an uncomfortable car ride with Jessica, we got to Max's house – or at least it was where Max was staying. This was always the hard part. Should I go for the goodbye kiss? I never knew until I got there, although I usually drove myself crazy wondering. Something about this moment told me _Yes_, you should kiss her… so I did.

I put one hand on her shoulder and another under her chin. She had really beautiful eyes. I kissed her, angling my head and putting my arms around her waist. God, Max is, like, perfect. She doesn't slobber on me like Lissa did. At that moment, I honestly didn't care that Jessica was still right there, but apparently she couldn't stand the scene any longer. She honked. Boy was she going to get an earful about that later. We both kind of laughed. The only thing I could think of to say was, "Whoa." Not exactly poetry, but Max nodded, so I guess I didn't make a complete fool of myself.

"You'd better go," Max started, even though I wanted to kiss her again, "But thanks again, for everything. It was great." I could only agree. As I made my way back to the car, I was sure of one thing – Max was unlike any other girl I had ever met.


End file.
